The Island She Loved

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French Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, "You want to give something to know that somebody will accept it. In fact, when you love somebody, somebody will not turn you down, your love is accepted. And this is communication to me. To give something which is.."

The image here was taken during my last visit to the Philippines. I went there with my family to commemorate the first anniversary of the passing of my mother-in-law. The sleepy town of San Antonio... In my mind, this image may have been one of the things that she always thought about when she was still here in the states. She was 96 years old when she returned to this island. She probably wanted to be at peace with the world and her Maker on the island she loved because a few months later she passed away. I've been at this place a few times before, and I've taken several pictures of it but never got to share them with her. I think that was my one small regret. Fortunately, it's never too late to share with people you love.

Hope your day goes well. - R

Techie Note: To get the surrealistic effect, the image would have been impossible to capture in one take. For one thing the waves are flowing very slowly but the bird is drifting faster than the waves. So really it's a composite of several takes with same aperture but different shutter speeds to get a very high dynamic range. As you may know, the process is called HDR for short. I usually don't use this process as it tends to make images look artificial but I thought this one worked well for me as I was going for a surrealistically ethereal look.